Dead of Winter
by Auua Ytjoml
Summary: It's December and the Brotherhood's hoodlum ways have come back to bite them with devastating consequences for their youngest member. Before this is over they are going to need a Christmas miracle. But where do mutant outcasts go to find one of those? (No Slash!)
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome to my three day, Christmas in Ju-August, special. Brought to you by DeviantArt artista Dendracia, whose image 'Dead of Winter' provides our cover art today and by our very own Idiosylph whose much beloved story 'The Big Brotherhood Program' remains one of the most lamented incomplete status in the fandom. Thank you, Dendracia, Idiosylph, for the inspiration you so graciously provided. Now... on to the snow- show!**

**Update: Thanks to Sonar for bringing the unacceptable level of errors in this chapter to my attention. I, in complete seriousness, lift this person up as an example we should all follow. They didn't say a single 'positive' thing. They didn't take a lot of time to write out a 'big' critique. But they did review. Just a single, one line, four word, review that allowed me to make this story a lot better. This is proof that reviewing doesn't have to take up a lot of your time. So please consider doing it more for the stories you read, if you don't already =)**

The stack of bills stares him down like an angry bull… or an angry Wolverine. Inevitable, unavoidable, and with a high probability of being very deadly.

Pietro doesn't think this is exaggerating. They're halfway through December, Mystique and Wanda haven't been seen since November, no one in all of Bayville would even consider hiring any of them, and falling softly outside is a foot of snow and counting.

"Yo Pietro. Turn up the heat will you? It's freezing in here, yo!"

Pietro turns. Lance and Todd are home already? He'd been sitting there staring at those bills from hell for a full ten minutes without moving? Yikes. "Can't do that. We have whatever's left in the tank and no way of getting new fuel. The power companies are shutting us off tomorrow."

Lance pulls off his hat and leans around the speedster to snatch the statements from the table. His eyes flick over their contents and he throws them back with an angry huff. "We'll conserve it for as long as we can but I can't see this lasting more than a day, maybe two, even if we don't use anything _but_ the heat."

For once Pietro doesn't object to the rockhead telling them what to do as if Lance were the leader and not him. He's not likely to be too affected; his speed tends to keep him more than warm enough. But like it or not their little band of misfits have become like brothers to him and he has no idea how to keep them safe.

"Well, don't expect me to take these off yo. I don't care if they are wet they're warmer than nothing."

Pietro looks up and takes a second to consider Toad's shivering frame, sopping wet from the walk home through the snow. Without a another second's thought he dashes upstairs and exchanges Todd's damp overcoat with his own dry one before the younger mutant can take another step into the room. No sense in getting the furniture wet.

"Hey! Oh. Thanks yo!"

**OoO**

Lance smiles at Pietro's rare show of concern for someone other than himself, but pulls him aside as they watch their youngest member bury himself a blanket. "That's not going to be enough Piet, and you know it. He was getting sluggish just on the way home from school. What's going to happen when he falls asleep?"

Pietro yanks his arm away, obviously irritated at being caught out in his good deed. "Don't worry about. I'll snag a bunch of those hand warmers. They kept him active enough that one time he went after Wanda, member?"

Lance looks at him with a calculating eye, trying to figure out the logistics on the go. There's more than just the cold that they'll have to beat if they want to survive this winter as a team. "Ok. Get some more blankets as well. But not from Bayville. I don't want the police blaming us just because we have a bad rep."

"Even though this time it is us?" Pietro laughs.

"Especially because this time it is us. We need their stuff more than the stores need our nonexistant cash."

"No argument here. Be back in thirty. Bye."

He's gone before Lance can do more than blink; half blink anyway. Shaking his head he pokes his head into the kitchen.

"Hey Freddy. What's the situation in here?"

Freddy turns with a small stack of freezer meal boxes in his arms. "Not good."

Lance frowns. "Is that all we have?"

"Plus Toad's bugs."

Lance wrinkles his nose at the mention of Todd's basement aquarium filled with compost and a self propagating supply of miscellaneous crawlies. "Well at least we can take what we need on this front. Feel like dumpster diving or babysitting? I don't think it's a good idea to let Toad-boy stay here by himself."

"I will go."

"K. Remember to check out the groceries first for expired boxes and cans. I want to avoid eating actual garbage for as long as possible."

Freddy frowns. "Why not just take what we need from the shelves?"

Lance shakes his head. "If the cops come down on us they'll find out Mystique isn't here. I can't let us get separated. Who knows what'd happen to us?"

Freddy doesn't say another word, just pulls on his tattered slicker over his sweater and wraps a large scarf around his neck as a replacement for his lack of a real coat.

Lance stands at the window to watch him bulldoze through the drifts towards town, and then turns back to the remaining brotherhood.

Todd has a cartoon on, South Park, but Lance can tell he's only half watching it. His eyes are partially closed and the remote dangles limply in his grasp as if the amphibious mutant is about to dive into slumberland at any moment. This had been happening more and more often as they'd decreased the heat, or rather, simply hadn't increased it despite the colder weather, in order to conserve energy. Lance collapses on the couch and throws an arm around the kid. Todd unconsciously leans into the warmth, blinking lazily.

Lance doesn't move when a gust of freezing air announces Pietro's return. He doesn't so much as shift from Todd's side until the speedster returns from a tour of their bedrooms to drop off the blankets and drops a pile of handwarmers on the table.

"Sorry I took so long-"

Lance glances at his watch. It's been twenty-five minutes.

"I went all the way to Port Washington and it wasn't frozen enough, believe it or not, to cut across the bay. Here."

A dozen opened and ready warmers are shoved into his hands. He tucks them around the sleepy Todd and gets up, stretching. "You see Freddy on your way back?"

"Uh-uh. What's he doing?"

"Getting us some supplies of the edible nature."

"Right. See ya for dinner."

And he's gone again. Whatever. Not to say that either of them are exactly easygoing to be around but the remaining Maximoff is at least tolerable when there's trouble to keep him focused. Wanda now; Lance snorts. Wherever she'd taken off to, just before Mystique left to track her down- Well let's just say she is going to be getting some words from him if she returns, hex bolts or no hex bolts.

"Yo Lance? Pietro? Freddy?"

Todd. Good! He's alert again. Lance returns to the living room.

"Hey Toad. You wanna get us dinner going?"

"Sure, Yo."

Todd throws off the blanket and wastes no time in tucking the assorted handwarmers into every available pocket and sticking place before hopping into the kitchen. Lance ignores the banging and clanging in favor of fetching his copy of the school blueprints from his room. After tonight it would be better if Toad simply doesn't leave the school. It'll be warmer there than here and there's still a week till break. Hopefully their missing sister or leader will be back by then. Either will do. Wanda can probably hex the heater into working and Mystique, the *#$*h, can actually pay the bills.

After dinner none of the boys feel much like staying up so soon the house is both dark and silent. Outside, the snow finally stops but the temperature plunges. Around midnight a shrill wine goes unnoticed by the sleeping occupants. The heater jugs on empty for a moment and dies. By morning the frost is creeping over the inside windows.

**Hmmm... How are they going to get out of this one? And is anyone in the northern hemisphere jealous? (of the snow not the lack of heat)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys. My original intent to post a chapter a day (hence three day special) was sabotaged when I feel asleep last night instead of posting. So here's yesterday's chapter today, and I _should_ have chapter three up sometime tonight as per schedule but it may not be up till tomorrow per ****sabotage. Either way...**

**Enjoy!**

The next morning Lance wakes with a shiver. Why is it so cold? Had Wanda thrown Toad through a window again? He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes in between attempts to pull the blankets closer around him. Another question sparks through his synapses. Since when does he have this many blankets? Oh. The bills. That's right. No broken windows; they just don't have power at all. Still, it'd gotten cold awfully fast; gotten cold and getting colder.

He swings his legs out of bed and pulls on a new set of cloths in the near darkness and then shambles down the hallway banging on doors as he goes.  
"Wake up! It's warmer at school than it is here so if you don't want to be late we need to leave in ten. Pietro you're taking Todd with you so you need to leave in no later than twenty-five. If you make him sick you're doing the extra laundry. "

"Rockhead! You're forgetting who's in charge here!" Pietro appears at his door irritated and perfectly groomed despite still being in his pajamas.

Lance shrugs. "And you're forgetting who set their alarm this morning, namely nobody but me."

"Whatever."

The door slams in his face but Avalanche declines to rock the little ass in return. It wouldn't due to crack the walls and make everything worse.

Freddy is the next up, lumbering down the hall to the bathroom without more than a grunt in his direction. Lance ignores this and hammers on the last door with his fist.

"Toad! Wake up! Time for school!" He opens the door to poke his head in. Todd's small body remains huddled in the center of his bed without moving. Lance enters the room and without another word yanks the covers, thinking that surely that will wake the kid up. Todd doesn't even stir.

Lance starts to worry. "Toad? Todd?" He touches the boy's shoulder and recoils. Toad's skin is clammy to touch and paler than it has any right to be. He rolls the kid over. His limbs are stiff almost as if- Lance scrambles for a pulse and nearly has a heart attack when he doesn't find one right away.

"Pietro!"

"No need to yell. What's up? Whoa! What's up with Toady-boy? Is he alive? Is he ok?"

Lance bits down on the urge slap the other teenager. "How does 'is he alive?' and 'is he ok?' even make it into the same thought?" he asks in disgust. "You need to get him to school now. If he doesn't warm up fast he's toast."

Worry for his teammate again pushes Pietro's worries about Lance usurping him as leader to the back of his mind. Almost gently he wraps his arms around the boy's chilly frame and waits for the rockhead to tuck a handful of handwarmers and a change of clothes into his backpack. As soon as Lance lets go of the zipper he's off. The world speeds up until everything is running at 'normal' speed again instead of the ridiculous slow motion that everyone else considers normal and then he pushes himself faster. Todd is already braced against whiplash by his chest and as he's unlikely to feel any sicker from the ride Quicksilver chooses speed over caution arriving at edge of the school property a mere one-hundred-fifty seconds after leaving the Toad's room.

The extreme speed has at least one favorable outcome in inducing enough nausea in his passenger to rouse him. Not enough to actually wake him up, but enough that he twitches in Pietro's arms giving him just enough warning to turn him over before he ejects last night's dinner with a pitiful moan. Pietro checks to make sure no one is present to watch him carry his teammate across the lawn and then hurries inside. Choosing the furnace room as both an excellent hiding place and as one of the more immediate sources of heat in the building he leans Todd gently against the wall and then digs into his backpack for the kid's clothing. Leaving it lying out on the floor he darts out and takes a few laps around the school before checking in again. No change. More laps. No change. More laps.

"Pietro?"

More- wait. Change. Toad's groggy but conscious.

"Where are we?"

"Your-clothes-are-right-over-there. I-ran-you-here. School."

OoO

Todd takes a second to decipher that. Pietro had used his superspeed to run him to school? Well that would explain his nausea. But- "Why?"

To his surprise Pietro becomes inexplicably angry over what had been, as far as he can see, a very simple and logical question. "Never you mind. But if you put even one foot out of this building before break you won't see me coming. Got it Toad?"

"I goddit! I goddit!" Forget about figuring out what is probably just the guy's idea of a prank; it's not worth antagonizing an inexplicably angry Pietro over. He backpedals away from the fist hovering dangerously close to his face and then looks down at himself; namely the fuzziest pair of pjs he owns complete with little frogs and umbrellas. "Um… yo Pietro? Where are my clothes?"

OoO

To say that Lance is relieved to see Todd blowing spitballs at the ceiling before class as if nothing unusual had happened that morning would be an understatement. He is so relieved that he's almost temped to go over and give the guy a hug. But only almost.

What he does do is wad up his incomplete homework and put it to much better use as a missile aimed at the back of the green-boy's head. Todd whirls around, nearly tripping over his desk in the process.

"Who threw that? Oh, it's you Lance. Hey, you know what's up with Pietro? He's been all angry at me, yo, and I can't figure out what I did this time."

Lance is singularly unsurprised that the speedster hadn't told Todd what had nearly happened. He doesn't want to either. In fact, there's no reason the kid needs to know. No reason at all. Threats will keep him firmly at school until break and they can break the news then. There. Now he has an entire week to figure out the bit about the 'how'…

The school day passes in a blur and all too soon Lance is adding his own threats to Pietro's before leaving a very confused Todd to shrug it off and let them have their way. He hadn't been looking forward to trudging home through the snow anyway. Especially without a warm house to look forward to on the other end.

OoO

The week passes with relatively little fuss on the surface.

At school Todd gets roped into helping decorate the school for the Christmas party when one of the teachers spies him lurking in an empty hallway the first evening and ushers him into the gym without listening to a word of his protests. He continues showing up the rest of the week because it's something to do and better by a long shot than the homework he puts off till the last minute as per usual. He doesn't even cause any trouble for fear of facing his teammates' wrath if he gets suspended.

At home, an increasing parade of blankets and a lucky battery run space heater left in someone's open garage, make their selves at home courtesy of Quicksilver. His attempt to snag a pair of heavy drapes from Art Vann bombs when he trips over all the extra fabric and is nearly caught. After than, Lance, who, more or less unintentionally and with a surprisingly minimal amount of backlash from Pietro, had taken control, changes their MO. The second half of the week Quicksilver stays home while Lance humbles himself enough to frequent various and sundry shelters looking for handouts. The idea being that if the Brotherhood is going through legal channels then surely they aren't behind the rash of thefts. The police seem to buy it because none of them drop by.

And then it's Thursday, last day of school, and Todd, seriously sick of sleeping in closets, is demanding that Pietro fetch him his coat and hat seeing as no one had thought to bring it with them and would someone please explain why they've been acting skittish around him and what this has to do with why he hasn't been allowed to leave the school for an entire week.

OoO

Pietro takes one look at Lance and runs off. As much as he is not going to be ordered about by Todd of all people, the kid does need his coat and this is a very convenient excuse to let Lance or Freddy, meaning Lance, do the explaining.

It's not that he's afraid. It's just that…. That telling someone he'd saved their life is so close to admitting he cares. That's it. It would just be embarrassing. So he's letting Lance take the fall. It has nothing to do with being afraid of dealing with their youngest's reaction at all. Of course not.

OoO

Back at the school Lance rubs the back of his neck; awkwardly avoiding Todd's incredulous stare.

"Yo telling me, I nearly died and none of yous wanted to tell me? That's why Pietro's been all angry this week? Not that the Toad's complaining but…"

Freddy breaks the awkwardness by patting Todd on the shoulder in a gesture that nearly sends him to the floor. The laughter following this is Pietro's reintroduction to the scene.

"We-all-clear-now?-Here.- Lance?"

Lance nods and jerks a thumb at the fumbling figure of Todd trying to pull on his jacket without dropping the oversized coat Pietro had also brought. "His first thought on the matter was 'that's why Pietro's been angry at me all week?'. I think he's taking it just fine." he mutters in an undertone.

OoO

Pietro nods; secretly relieved. Outside, his pent up worry ignites as adrenaline when a stray snowball from one of the X-geeks catches him square across the cheek. He seeks out the thrower and lands on a guilty looking Nightcrawler.

He crouches. "Hey Blob?"

The large mutant looks down at him. "Yeah?"

"Take Toad home. Avalanche and I have some business to take care off."

OoO

Toad laughs from atop Blob's shoulder's and pokes his tongue out at the doomed fuzzball. No one wins a snowball fight against Pietro. Iceboy might stand a chance but it looks like he's already gone home. The X-geeks are toast.

Not that Toad feels any need to stick around and watch it happen. The thought of being a target to stray snowballs sends him huddling further into the overcoat currently swimming around his shoulders and down over his shoes and Freddy's shoulders.

"Let's get out of here, yo."

Freddy grunts in agreement and trudges off along the sidewalk leaving the icy airborne projectiles behind them.

Back at the boarding house Freddy dumps Todd on the couch next to the space heater and dumps a pile of blankets on top of him. Todd digs his way back to the surface only for the massive mutant to fold his arms across his chest and, of all the crazy things, start lecturing him in his slow methodical speech.

"Forget about homework. You're job over break is to keep yourself alive. Lance and Pietro made a list of rules. You're not to move from in front of the heater except to go to the bathroom… not even to eat. You're not to fall asleep without permission or without someone else in the room. If you do feel sleepy you're supposed to tell one of us right away."

Toad groans, but doesn't dare complain. For Freddy to be this talkative can only mean bad things for anyone not equally as serious. "Anything else yo?"

Freddy thinks for a moment "No."

OoO

Having nothing against being pampered or staying alive, Todd stays happily curled up in his cocoon with the heater blasting only feet away from atop the living room table. Freddy makes himself busy in the kitchen so the amphibious mutant entertains himself, first by actually finishing some of his homework and then by grabbing the TV remote with his tongue only to remember that no power means no TV as well, and finally by belting out whatever Christmas songs he can remember and making up all the ones he can't.

Freddy doesn't appear in the doorway to complain but neither does he act in anyway bothered by Todd's obvious boredom, so, all in all, he is glad to feel the chill breeze announcing the return of Lance and Pietro. Both are damp with snow and exertion but much happier for the release of tensions beating on the x-geeks had been. They go upstairs to change and one of them brings out a battered game of life which they're halfway through by the time Freddy finally makes an appearance to announce that dinner is ready.

OoO

Todd pokes at the slightly blackened pasta with his fork and winces when it jiggles. "Yo, Freddy. What happened to this?"

Freddy shrugs and merely continues eating his portion.

Lance pokes at his own a bit and then answers before taking a bite. "He's made this using a temperamental camping stove. We were actually _given_ it for our usual price of 'free' if that gives you an idea of how crappy the thing is." He takes a moment to swallow and scoop another wad of unadorned-save-for-the-charchol pasta into his mouth. "We're lucky it's edible. First night, Pietro nearly burned the house down."

"Like-you-were-any-better."

Lance shrugs, determined not to argue in front of Todd; not when any argument between them about anything is likely to come around to blaming each other for Todd's near death. " Freddy's got an agreement with that thing that I ain't touching."

Todd takes one more stab at the mess and then shrugs, opens his mouth and dumps it all in in one go." Feeling everyone staring at him, he swallows with an audible gulp and shrugs. "What yo? It doesn't taste as bad that way."

Freddy frowns, probably at the collective assault on his cooking skills but the others shrug back and return to the game-board having long ago learned not to make a big deal out of other people's mutations unless they want a fight.

OoO

That night, as Pietro directs the human tetris game that is getting them all sleeping spots on the single couch, Lance hangs back and lets him strut his stuff. It had taken more than a few squabbles but he thinks he's starting to figure out how they work best. He's best at leading people. Not to say that he's an expert in diplomacy but between the two of them… And Quicksilver is good at taking a plan and making sure it's carried out. Doing things the way they have been for the past week really seems to work.

He casts an eye over the person unknowingly making this all happen. Todd is hopping from foot to foot on the cold floor while Blob gets situated. Lance, apparently, is next on Freddy's right and then Todd is squeezed more or less in between –on top of them with even more blankets, before Pietro snags the last two and settles down on Freddy's left.

Todd is already nestling into his shoulder so Lance wraps an arm the kid and pulls him closer. The extra body heat can't hurt. Peering out from between his eyelashes he watches as, one by one, the others drop off to sleep. Only when he's the last man awake does he allow his eyes to slide shut with a small smile. It looks like they're going to get through this just fine after all.

**Of course it won't be that easy... but we can let him hope. Any comments? Critiques? You know what to do!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for the delay! I've had a rough couple of days an no energy to get anything beyond the essentials done and, much as we think otherwise most of the time, writing is not in fact, essential =) Here's chapter three and, as it was getting so long, I split it up into two parts. Chapter four will be up but I'm afraid to make any predictions about when. Soon though. I can definitely manage soon.**

The snow keeps falling.

Inside, Todd slips out of a very pleasant dream involving a warm summer's day and a cool pond with no one else for miles around to the feeling of something sharp slamming into his stomach. "Urk!"

He kicks back and to his befuddlement hears someone yelling his name… angrily. "Toad!"

Opening his eyes he assesses the room. Lance is on the floor. His expression clearly says that he'd been the one he'd kicked and someone is going to pay. A still sleeping Pietro reveals the source of the elbow and a swift kick corrects that situation immediately. Any retaliation on the speedster's part, towards him at least, is immediately expunged when Lance decides to get back, not at Toad, but at the root source of his rude awakening. Their subsequent bickering wakes up Freddy who dumps Todd on the floor in turn and lumbers purposefully through the fray on his way to the bathroom. Finding their respective targets separated from them by a wall of flesh the two leaders give up their fight in favor of bullying Todd back on to the couch and into the nest of abandoned blankets still quite warm from the residual body heat.

"This is so weird, yo." And, quite frankly, weird is probably the best way, maybe even the only way to describe Lance and Piet _sharing_ leadership, Freddy breaking _up_ fights and _his_ green ass getting _preferential_ treatment… just plain weird. Not that he's complaining. As far as he's concerned it's _good_ weird, and not because the rest keep treating him like glass – treatment which honestly is getting old as glass is precious and breakable very much in the ways Toads aren't. No. The niceness comes – almost – entirely from the joint leadership making things run so much smoother. At this rate the Brotherhood will be able to kick old Mystique to the curb if she ever shows her face around here again. They'll just take care of themselves and be better off for it, thank you very much.

The day passes as most school breaks at the boarding house do, with lots of snacks, games, and general mayhem. Todd tries to escape the confines of the rules forced upon him exactly once. When Pietro finds him on the ceiling Toad finds himself suddenly without pants, a state of affairs that hurries him back to the couch partially out of embarrassment but also because being pantless in a house without central heating is _cold_. That he was originally on the ceiling because Freddy momentarily forgot he was under the blankets and nearly sat on him goes completely unregistered and Todd takes a moment to appreciate the normalness of getting the short end of the stick.

It's pizza for lunch; the frozen pizza being only mostly thawed by sitting on the heater all morning. Some mistake in the preparation had created a pizza with seventeen slices and the fight over who gets how much leads to actual blows being exchanged between the two leaders while Freddy and Todd look on and wonder if they're allowed to start eating.

For dinner Freddy serves dry cereal and hot cocoa, water being pretty much the only thing he hasn't yet managed to burn on the camp stove and then it's off to bed, well couch. All in all the first day of winter break passes cheerfully and without notable incident.

And the snow keeps falling.

OoO

The first signs of a worsening in their state of affairs appear after breakfast the next morning when Pietro attempts to run out for more supplies…. 'Attempts' being the operative word. Opening the front door reveals a wall of snow, with only a small slice of sunlight trickling in from the top eight or so inches. Attempting to leave through a second story floor ends when Quicksilver discovers that the snow is too light and fluffy to hold his weight. Or any weight really. Water holds his weight at top speed because the concussive impact of his feet at that speed hardens the water under the same principle that hitting a lake after a parachute malfunction is just as deadly as hitting the parking lot next to it. This snow on the other hand whips away from the mere wind created by his feet approaching the surface and even when running top speed he still has to put his full hundred pounds on the area of one foot with each stride just like everyone else.

Trapped inside, the eldest three gather everything they do have, and run supplies reconnaissance. The most worrying hole is in hand warmers. It takes an insane amount of them to keep Todd active and the others had been using them too, though in not nearly such high quantities, for things like keeping their fingers and toes from turning blue. The remaining half dozen or so won't be enough to keep even Todd going the rest of the day.

Pietro sits back on his heels and looks over at Lance. "Well?"

"Well what?" Lance snipes back.

"Well what're we going to do?"

Biting retort already on his tongue, Lance looks up in surprise. It's one thing for the other to give him tacit compliance and a whole other ballpark for Pietro to outright ask Lance to act as leader and come up with a plan. Pietro reads the dumbfounded surprise in the other's faces correctly and rubs a hand over his face.  
"Look. I'm as shocked to be saying this, as you probably are to be hearing it but- "he looks away in shame, "I don't have a plan. I'm used to solving everything with speed. I think faster, react quicker; I can run laps around any of you, literally. But I can't lead if I don't have a plan. My running isn't going to help us this time and-" He looks as if someone is forcing him to say the words at bulletpoint but they come. "-well, you Lance, you're more flexible. You plan for things I don't even register, like making sure the cops stay off our backs. If you got a plan I'm with you. Much as the little guy is a pain in the ass, I don't want to Todd dead any more than you do."

Lance nods quietly, retort forgotten. "Thanks Piet. I'll try to live up to that," he says, but that's all the attention he pays to the confession. Any more would serve only to embarrass the one who'd given it which would do nothing to help any of them.

"Allright. Freddy, I want you on shovel duty. If we can make a path to the road, Pietro might be able to get into town. Piet. You and me are on operation body heat." He jerks a thumb towards the living room where Todd is trying his best to see what everyone else is doing in the kitchen without him without actually leaving the couch. "We need to conserve those hand warmers for as long as possible in case we need to leave Todd alone or, worst case scenario, bring him somewhere."

"On it boss." Freddy salutes and heads to the front door.

Just as Lance is about to follow, Pietro pulls him back. "Don't let Toad know what we're up to. If he thinks he's burden he might-"

Lance nods solemnly, remembering the night he'd found the younger teenager fishing a bottle of prescription pills out of a trash bin. He'd sworn he was just scrounging around and had just happened to be holding the pills rather than some other piece of garbage when Lance found him but that didn't explain why, on another occasion soon after Pietro had first arrived, Todd had actually sent Magneto's then lackey through a wall for trying to take his wrist bands. It had been and still is only time Lance had seen him show that much aggression towards anyone, even the x-geeks.

"Understood."

OoO

In coordinated uncoordination, Lance and Pietro split, Lance tromping up stairs and Pietro zooming over to the couch where he begins flicking the end of the blankets over Todd's game of solitaire.

"Yo, would you stop that!"

Pietro pretends to think for a moment. "Umm… no."

Todd attempts to lay down a card only for it to lift up and drift to the floor under one of Pietro's blanket drafts. "Why don't you go bother someone else?"

Pietro sends another card to the floor. Todd sticks out his tongue and considers using it to pick them up. "Too much slime," he decides

Pietro leans over his shoulder. "What?"

"I said," Todd says shoving the other boy away, "That I _would_ slime you only I have to share a bed with you tonight and the shower's not working."

"You did not."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah." Another card floats to the floor followed by the entire deck as Todd lunges for the perpetrator and accidentally knocks the carefully arrayed cards off the table with a single sweep of the blanket wrapped around his legs. The same blanket causes his inevitable introduction to the floor and while he curses out Pietro and picks up his deck the formentioned annoyance takes the opportunity to steal Todd's blankets.

"Give 'em back, yo."

"Make me."

Todd knows better than to pick a fight with Quicksilver when he's so obviously spoiling for one and simply ducks under the blankets as much as he can with Pietro already utilizing them and restarts his game.

OoO

Success. Pietro conceals his triumphant laugh as a shuddering cough when Toad abandons his blankets and then backs down from fighting for them back in favor of trying to share. Pietro gives a low whistle and leans back, content to occasionally flick the back of Toad's head with the free corner of a tasseled quilt.

Hearing the cue Lance wanders back downstairs rubbing his hands together and plops down on Toad's other side with a grunt.

"Spread the warmth will you?" With a tug he yanks the blankets so that Pietro loses his stockpile of covers and Todd ends up amply covered as a result of being in the middle of their tug of war.

When his cards tip over _again_ after Lance gives a particularly vicious tug he gives up with an irritated sigh and uses the rest of the deck as missiles, flicking them at various targets around the room, including his warring brothers.

Eventually Lance and Pietro, who'd quite forgotten the original plan in their mutual enjoyment of the fight, quite down when they notice a quite sputtering sound. Before their eyes the heater sputters and goes out. Lance and Pietro lock eyes.

"You get the fuel."

"No, you get fuel."

"You, go."

"You, go."

"Jerkface."

"Rockhead."

Todd glances between the two of them. "_I_ could always go get it?"

The duo turn on him unanimously. "NO!"

"Fine, sheesh!" Todd shrugs and surreptitiously tugs a few more of the blankets away from Pietro's side of the couch when the speedster finally gives up and runs to the kitchen where they'd been storing the fuel in a previously emptied water cooler.

Pietro feels it before he sees it; a thin oily film under his foot that sends him crashing to the linoleum where he finds himself in the perfect position to examine the large crack traveling up the side of the hard plastic, spilling their only source of heat across the floor.

When he doesn't return Lance appears in the doorway followed by Toad who offers the first commentary on the disaster.

"Dang yo, that's not good."

Neither has the heart to chase him back to the couch in the moment. Alerted, perhaps by the lack of fighting, perhaps by chance, the front door opens to reveal a partially dug out and many times collapsed then subsequently widened passage from the house to the end of the driveway. One look over Freddy's shoulder makes it clear that the massive mutant had continued his work merely as a way to pass the time. The street is completely filled in as well and most of the other houses along the street hadn't been stepped outside of. Short of swimming through it none of them, not even Quicksilver, would be getting anywhere any time soon.

Lunchtime passes unobserved as the quadre try unsuccessfully to mop up the fuel. Only when Todd sways a bit, bumping into Lance do the others realize that in their panic they'd allowed him to break their own rules.

Todd notices their consternation and shrugs it off. "Sorry Lance, just a bit tired. 'parently dogpiles and closets aren't the best for a good night's sleep."

"Couch. Now." Lance's words are clipped and his movements jerky as he follows up the order with a hand clamped around Todd's arm.  
"Allright, Allright. No need to get grabby." Todd yawns. "Mind if I take a nap if you won't let me help?"

Pietro piles the blankets over them both, ignoring the oily residue left behind and ignoring Todds protests at being this close to each other. "No. No naps. You can't go to sleep on us."

Todd nods at them in compliance but as his eyelids drift downward and flutter open again Freddy, Lance and Pietro exchange frantic glances over his head. What now?

OoO

Todd is surprised when no one immediately threatens him back into his cocoon after Freddy joins them in the kitchen, but he is in no hurry to point out their lapse. He'd been going stir-crazy and surely he won't freeze if he keeps moving, right? His hand warmers lose warmth but he doesn't mention it to the others. He'd opened the last ones shortly after Freddy had headed out to try and dig them out. There aren't any left and no one can do anything about it so no sense in worrying the others, especially not when they'd taken such particular worry over him since this whole mess had started.

When he beings to tire he doesn't think anything of it. Over a week of sleeping in a lot of places that share one thing in common – namely not being a bed – will do that to a body. But by the time Lance catches him trying to hold back a yawn he's more than willing to give up his temporary freedom of movement for the couch. So long as the rest don't try to join him he might even be able to get some shuteye.

.

The slight chill that had pervaded his body for the last forty-eight hours increases despite the warm body next to him and he starts to shivers only to find that he can't stop.

.

Another body – must be Lance and Piet then– joins the first in rubbing his limbs vigorously but the temporary warmth of friction merely serves to further the contrast between their warmth and his cold.

.

His third eyelids, which he normally keeps firmly hidden save when underwater, slide shut and he can't find the energy to force them open again.

.

Someone shakes him until he can't tell their actions from his chattering teeth. What do they want?

"Dammit Todd! Listen to-" he drifts off again. "-kill you myself!" Wait. What? Who wants to kill him? Whoever it is doesn't answer.

.

The cold filters into his bones and he finds his body responding automatically, flattening as best it can so as to stay better stabilized in the currents under the ice slowly freezing him in his pond and slowing his breathing and heartbeat to nearly nill to reduce the unnecessary muscle movement and required energy therein needed.

Loud, panicky noises filter through his ears occasionally but he ignores them. He couldn't have responded anymore if he wanted to.

OoO

What seems like a haze of minutes to the amphibious teenager is hours according to Lance's watch and considerably longer to his increasingly alarmed brain. When Todd stops fighting to keep his eyes open mere minutes after first returning to the blankets in favor of dully gazing straight ahead with a half lidded stare, Lance gives Freddy a hard look. "Get help. Anyone. Anywhere. I don't care." Freddy nods. The front door opens and closes and then there are three.

Lance grabs the edge of the wad of blankets and shimmies underneath. He can feel Pietro's body heat but the lanky boy directly next to him is ice cold.

Todd's light tremors morph into continuous shivering as they try rubbing warmth back into his flesh. They're at it for nearly forty minutes when Lance notices a filmy membrane slip across his eyes. Pietro follows his stare and begins shaking him with barely restrained speed; yelling in Toad's face at the top of his lungs.

"Dammit Todd! Listen to me and listen good. Don't even think about dying on us. You even try it and I promise I'll make your life living hell. You don't get to quit this team. We're the Brotherhood. Family. You know what family means Todd? It means we don't leave each other! Todd! Wake up will you, you little ingrate! I swear I'm going to kill you myself!"

"Enough Piet." The frantic Quicksilver startles at the arm that enters his tunnel vision and pulls him away from the object of his fear and anger. Lance's eyes are filled with fear too but his is calmer, more accepting. "Shaking him 's not going to wake him up. We need to keep him as warm as possible until Fred comes back with help."

Pietro laughs harshly even as he snugs back up tight to Todd's unresponsive side. "Help? Get real. Who's going to help him? Help any of us? We're the outcastes remember? The bad guys? Father doesn't care about us and is, in any case, unavailable. I've no idea where he is and he's not likely to walk past Freddy on the street. The general public hates us and have no reason to help. The X-geeks-"

"They might help. They don't want us dead. Not in cold blood like this."

Pietro plows on. "-aren't even in the country right now. Damn rich professor took all the ones who didn't go home for break, to Europe. Pretty Kitty was bragging all about it at the punch table. They left Thursday night and won't be back till New Years."

His best hope punctured , Lance's heart sinks. "Oh."

He eventually orders Pietro to go get them some food, just to give him something visibly more productive to do than sitting vigil as a living bedwarmer over an increasingly unresponsive Todd. He is back within seconds a bag of frozen vegetables in one hand and box of crackers in the other. They eat in silence. Lance plays with his cellphone – dead for weeks and offline for longer – flipping it open and closed, open and closed, until Pietro snaps at him and he stops. Their own meager warmth begins to fade and they huddle even closer, Pietro vibrating his body in place in an attempt to warm things up as much as possible.

The evening shadows lay deep over the buried lower floors before one of them speaks up again.

"Hey Lance?"

"What?"

"Todd's not going to die right? Not for real. _Not like mom_."

The last sentence is so quite that Lance is sure he wasn't intended to hear it. Reaching over Todd's body he wraps an arm around his brother's thin shoulders. "Of course not," he lies easily. "It'll be close, but like you said. We're the bad guys. Since when do they ever really die? Vanquished, beaten, mostly dead, appear to be dead, sure. But they always come back to bite the heros in their collective ass. Todd won't let them down."

OoO

By the time the exhausted Maximoff drifts off into an uneasy sleep somewhere around midnight, Freddy has been gone for nearly eight hours and Todd's heartbeat is glacial slow and almost imperceptible. Lance struggles to stay awake, in part fearful that Todd will breath his last the moment someone isn't watching him and in part already convinced that it's only a matter of time till the end and determined not to let Todd go alone. He only hopes Freddy had found some shelter.

Despite his best efforts, it's no where near dawn when heavy lids slide shut over bloodshot pupils and the Brotherhood leader joins the rest of his companions in sleep.

**So, what do you think?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's the concluding chapter guys! It's been real fun writing a little winter story and breaking out my Christmas music. I hope you've had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. **

**Now on to the show!**

Freddy can barely feel the cold snow against his skin, but it's for a much less worrying reason than it would have been for anyone else in his position. Despite being literally buried in snow up to his shoulders, his fat, the part of him that makes him 'the Blob', is doing a fine job of insulating him. He'd read once that whales use the same trick to survive living in some of the coldest waters in the world. It didn't stop him from pummeling the dumb ass who'd started calling him 'Free Willey' and 'Big Blue' into the ground, but it does serve to bolster his confidence in trusting his mutation to keep him alive in the face of temperatures hovering just above zero Fahrenheit.

Once he hits the end of their road and turns onto one of the larger drags the snow depth abruptly plummets so that he's plowing through ankle deep drifts instead. There's still nobody around so he keep moving towards town. Surely something is open. A gas station. A Wal-Mart. A hospital. Something.

But Bayville may as well be a ghost town. He sees exactly one other soul in the four hours it takes him to traverse into and back to the edge of town. The snowplow driver yells at him to get out of the way and get on home and drives past without stopping to listen to his pleas for help. Freddy is ready to start knocking door to door when a small lithe shape prowling from shadow to shadow catches his attention. He lumbers towards it. Whoever or whatever it is it needs to get out of the cold just as much as Todd does.

He's not thirty feet from the figure when it turns on him with flashing claws and flying hair.

"What are you doing here Blob? Why are you following me? What trouble are you causing me?"

One set of claws rips through his coat and scores deeply into his arm. The other is arrested by one of his massive fists and in short order he's holding the little Wolverine-girl up off the ground as she flails, trying to score a hit on him with fist or foot. Of course they're at an impasse. He can't even change position without allowing her to either score another hit or wriggle free and attack again. But he doesn't need to move to talk to her. She's not officially one of the X-men, but if she's out here then chances are Wolverine, at least, is out here too.

"Stop fighting X-girl. I don't want to fight you. I need help."

"Put me down! I will rip you to shreds for this!"

Fred shrugs. "I won't drop you if doing so will have me ripped to shreds. Try again."

The girl absorbs the logic in that and suddenly relaxes her muscles. "Fine. I will not rip you to shreds if you put me down."

"Will you help?"

She glares at him suspiciously. "With what?"

"Toad, my teammate. He is freezing to death. Let us take him to the x-mansion and let him stay there until we have heat."

She frowns. "You… don't have heat?"

Freddy shakes his head.

She bows hers. "I do not either. That is why I came here. I am going to the house you speak of as well. If you are speaking the truth then I will not stop you from bringing your request to Wolverine. He will decide if your teammate, Toad, is allowed to stay with the x-men."

Freddy drops her and she immediately turns defensively, claws raised towards his midsection. After a moment in which he doesn't move at all for fear of being deemed a threat again she sheaths her claws and motions for him to follow her. He does so gladly, happy to have finally found someone at least willing to consider helping them.

The going is still slower than he would like though and it only gets slower once they hit the long drive connecting the expensive properties on the peninsula to Bayville proper. Not a single house is lit, probably because all of the occupants are spending Christmas in various second homes around the country. The x-girl refuses to let him carry her and even with him breaking trail her small size slows them down as she wallows through the drifts that, even broken, still come up past her waist.

By the time they reach the last driveway dusk has long fallen and with it fat puffy flakes that threaten to undo all his work as a one-man snowplow effortlessly.

The girl takes one look at the snowbound gates and ignores the keypad entirely in favor of scaling the wall. Unable to follow her, Blob takes the more direct route, snapping the lock on the gates and shoving with his considerable strength until he opens a wide enough gap for him to squeeze through.

The mansion is dark.

"They must be asleep." He reassures himself out loud.

"No." The girl overrides him with surety, sniffing the air all the while. "No one has been outside for days. The scents are all old. Maybe they are inside. I don't think so."

Freddy's heart plummets. This had been his last hope. Even if the x-girl allows them inside without the approval of Wolverine, he won't make it back to the Brotherhood before daybreak and Todd might very well have frozen by then. He'd taken a gamble trekking all the way out here. Todd had lost.

Beside him the x-girl is still sniffing the air. "I can smell the electricity here. The security defense system is on, but it is not attacking us."

Freddy shrugs desolately. "So?"

She smiles for the first time since he'd spotted her. "So it is not on automatic. Someone is watching us."

She strides up the last set of steps to the front door and rings the doorbell. A moment later, the intercom crackles to life.

OoO

Laura has been traveling south for days now.

She'd smelled the approaching storm. She'd watched the various fellow inhabitants her forest stock up and hide themselves away. She did not hide. Her hut was not sturdy enough, she thought, to withstand the storm and she did not wish to bury herself in the snow and trust her healing factor to keep her alive until she could dig her way out again. What she really wanted was a pack with which to weather the storm and a warm place out of the wind and snow with plenty of food that she did not have to hunt down herself.

With those thoughts in mind she had turned southward and eastward. She knows of such a place and her originator, the one she calls father in her moments of deepest weakness when she tries to forget that she is a weapon and tries to pretend that she is just a young girl instead, had told her to come back there if ever she needed help. She is not so sure that she _needs_ help but she knows that it would be nice to have some. At any rate she has calculated the probability of being turned away and the result is very low. She will risk it.

What she had not calculated the probability of was running into an enemy of her ally apparently seeking help and not trouble. She only vaguely remembers the Toad boy from her reconnaissance on the X-men leading up to her first encounter with them. He has powerful leaping abilities and a prehensile tongue along with other passive amphibious characteristics. He is a minimal threat. According to Blob – strength and immobility: minimal threat if not engaged – he is less than that now.

She is not sure how she feels about him dying or not, but she understands the loyalty of a pack towards its members. Blob smells of sweat, fear and something like ash but he does not smell like he is lying. She will allow him to present his case to her pack leader. Wolverine will know how to deal with this.

The long march to the mansion is irritating in extreme. If she were on her own she could run along walls and make much better time but she does not think Blob is capable of running anywhere much less balancing atop walls. He apparently feels irritation too as he attempts to convince her to let him carry her through the snow. She denies the request immediately. It would be incautious in the extreme to place her person so near an unproven agent; especially one who has already rendered her immobile once this day.

When they finally arrive the stillness of the grounds disturbs her. There is no scent, no tracks. Multiple members of her pack are capable of removing the snowfall and yet none have done so. She reaches the most likely conclusion. They are not here. Whether they left of their own design or another's is still to be determined but that they are not here is nearly irrefutable.

She informs Blob of this and continues searching the air for clues. Something is still not right. Something doesn't fit.

The slight smell of ozone and sulfur reaches her nose through the slight wind. Electricity…. It hits her. Electricity means that something is running. She shouldn't be able to smell house appliances from here, which means what she's smelling must be the security system set up across the property.

She announces her findings to her companion. "I can smell the electricity here. The security defense system is on, but it is not attacking us."

Blob shrugs, unaffected by her good news. "So?"

She allows a small smile to slip across her face as she elucidates. "So it is not on automatic. Someone is watching us."

Purposefully she strides up the last set of steps to the front door and rings the doorbell. A moment later, the intercom crackles to life as she'd expected it would. "Laura X-23 requesting entrance along with Brotherhood member Blob who wishes to ask for your help."

The gravely snarl of her pack laeder carries through the night air over the static. "What's he want?"

"He says that they do not have heat and that one of his team mates is dying as a result."

The intercom buzzes and a click signals the unlocking of the door to her sensitive ears "Come on in kid. It's good to hear from you again. Keep Blob in the entranceway. I'll be up before you can shake a claw at him."

She does as directed, shutting the door firmly behind them and Blob stands quietly subdued where she directs him until Wolverine appears in the hallway.

"Hey Laura. Long time no see."

She smiles back at him. "The storm brought me down. It would be unpleasant and unnecessary for me to hold my position when you offered wintering quarters here."

He chuckles, "too right."

OoO

Freddy waits impatiently for the x-girl, Laura, and Wolverine to finish exchanging pleasantries. Don't they know Todd is dying?

Finally Wolverine turns. "So what's your story Dukes?"

Freddy tells it as it is and prays for a miracle. "We don't have power and the fuel for our heater spilt and there's nowhere to get more. Toad's not handling the cold well. We think he's dying."

The Canadian frowns. "And what do you want me to do about it?"

Freddy swallows his anger at the callous reply. He can't lose his temper. He's Todd's last chance. "Let Toad stay here until it warms up. The rest of us will survive but he won't."

OoO

Wolverine's frown deepens. Does this kid seriously think he's going to turn them away? They may be troublemakers and rabble-rousers but they're hardly trouble of the worst sort. He certainly doesn't want any of their deaths on his conscience when they're not threatening his own kids. Not when they're beaten so far down that Dukes can come begging to the X-men, their enemy, without even a sniff of reluctance or resentment. "Get settled. I'll see if Blue's well enough to 'port over there and collect Tolansky. The rest of your lot can make there own way over tomorrow."

OoO

Fred blinks. They can stay? Not just Todd, but _all_ of them?

"Laura, why don't you grab Rouge's and Kitty's room? They won't mind you using their stuff. Dukes, you're too big for any of the beds but the couch in the rec-room doubles as a futon. That should work. How many other hoodlums am I hosting?"

"Three. Mystique and the Witch aren't around."

Wolverine grunts. "I'm not even going to ask. Listen Bub. I'm putting a lot of faith in your lot's ability to be non-destructive for the duration of your stay. That means no stealing, no vandalizing, no breaking into areas you don't belong and no fighting in the house. Do I make myself clear?"

Freddy nods and clumsily salutes for extra measure. "Yes sir. We don't want trouble."

"Good." With one last stiff nod, Wolverine disappears back down the hallway he'd arrived from and Laura departs for the girls wing. Freddy stands awkwardly in the foray for a moment before heading in the direction he thinks the rec-room might be in.

OoO

Kurt is utterly miserable.

It's bad enough that he'd come down with a bad bug right over Christmas vacation. Even worse is the fact that everyone else is enjoying a cool Yorksire holiday in England while he's stuck here, alone with only Wolverine for company. Worst of all is the power inhibiter on his wrist, courtesy of Forge, to stop him from teleporting only God knows where every time he sneezes. It blocks his porting ability all right but it also makes his skin crawl like crazy as if the device takes offence to the very physical nature of his mutantness.

Being confined to a bed in the medbay instead of his nice comfy bed upstairs doesn't help anything so when Wolverine appears in the doorway asking if he's well enough to do a short emergency retrieval mission, he lets out a loud sneeze, blows his nose, ignores his raging fever and nods enthusiastically. Ok, maybe the nodding was a mistake. Now his head is throbbing as well.

"Good. I wouldn't ask this of you if it weren't a matter of life and death but a certain group of miscreants needs our help and you're the best bet we have of reaching them in time."

Nightcrawler gapes. "Miscreants? You mean the Brotherhood?!"

Logan nods gruffly. "I meant what I said about life and death. Are you still in?"

The fuzzy teenager lets out another sneeze and nods miserably. Unsteadily he climbs to his feet with Logan's help, pulls off the inhibitor and then focus' his entire attention on picturing the front doorstep of the Brotherhood Boarding house. He might land in a pile of snow but at least this way he won't land in anyone.

OoO

Pietro is deep in the throes of a nightmare about an abominable snow-monster when a loud persistent banging sound drags him into consciousness. Lance is passed out across from him. In between them, Todd lies like one already dead. He fumbles for his pulse, bypassing the wrist for the neck, assuming that Todd's extremities will have the least bloodflow of all if he's still-

No. Don't even think it. He's almost sure he's imagined it but nearly a minute later he feels it again; a faint 'thub-dub'. He lets out a sigh of relief. Todd's still alive. He's still alive.

The banging sound returns accompanied by what sounds like muffled shouting. He cocks his head. It's coming from the door! He carefully slides out from underneath the covers and darts over to open the door.

"Freddy?"

The dreadful looking, puffy-eyed, purple-nosed, face of Nightcrawler draws him up short.

"Mind if I come in?"

Wordlessly he steps aside. The x-geek stumbles over the doorstep and heads straight for the tousled mop of hair peeking out from Lance's position on the couch.

"I don't think I can take all of you. I'm- ACHOO – pretty sick if you hadn't guessed."

Pietro shakes his head dumbly. "Just get Todd out of here."

Kurt doubles over in a hacking fit. When it passes he takes the last few steps and pulls off the covers to grab the comatose Toad. This wakes Lance who lies as shocked as Pietro as Kurt bullies Toad's unresponsive body into an upright position and prepares to leave.

"Oh. I almost forgot! You are invited to stay with us as well. You'll just have to get over on your own."

A moment later the sick x-geek is gone; their little brother with him.

Pietro snags the abandoned blankets and curls back up on the couch next to Lance; draping the layers over the two of them before they lose the little warmth they'd managed to collect.

Lance wipes a weary hand across his eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

"If you are then I'm sharing it with you. And I don't think so. I was having a nightmare about a Sabertooth shaped snowman chasing me through Santa's village when I woke up. I don't think you can dream about waking up into another dream."

OoO

Lance checks his watch. He's been asleep maybe an hour. Freddy had left around nine hours ago then. He'd found help. God knows why the X-men, or at least some of them, are still here and not in Europe – maybe the elf had been too sick to travel? – but they'd saved the day and he'll even thank them for it… in the morning. Right now, he's cold, tired and more happy than he can remember being in a long time. Without the constant worry eating at his mind he's asleep again within minutes, Pietro with him.

In the morning when they wake to find Todd still gone and the smell of sulfur still hanging in the frigid air they just about flip out with the giddiness of it all.

"Guess what rockhead!" Pietro yells as he packs some of their frozen provisions in their two backpacks as a peace offering. "It's Christmas! Christmas Lance!"

Lance can hardly believe it himself. Last night had seemed like anything but the season of miracles and this morning they are looking forward to spending the rest of break, possibly even longer, in a mansion with all the latest gizmos including the miracle of a working furnace. Who knows. Maybe the flight had been canceled and Kitty will be there as well. He hadn't seen much of her in the week before break, busy as he'd been with making preparations and gathering supplies.

Literally before he knows it Pietro has them packed and ready to go and he opens the door to a sparkling winter wonderland. The path beaten out by Freddy leads away into the distance, a dusting of snow from the night before softening the definitions of the Blob's heavy imprints.

Lance shoulders his pack and sets off, Pietro in the lead. It looks like it's going to be a Merry Christmas after all.

**Fin.**

**The end.**

**And they lived happily ever after.**

**Payment accepted in the form of reviews to be deposited below. Thank you and have A WONDERFUL LIFE; (IT'S). snigger. Ok I'll hold off on the rest of my bad puns. ;-)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Surprise! I promised myself that I wouldn't post the end of the end until I'd finished the chapter I've being procrastinating on for "Down at the Tavern". Chapter 31 is up for that so now you guys get a super bonus chapter for this! **

**Enjoy! And Merry CHRISTmas!**

Waking up is like swimming through a haze of silt and fog to find the surface of a still pond. Gravity, or maybe its whatever's causing the ache in his bones, pulls him downward insistently forcing him to struggle with all his might to drag himself out and up into the light.

An eternity later he blinks slowly and immediately lets his eyelids drop shut again. The light is blinding after the all-encompassing darkness that had surrounded him.

"He's awake. You can sit with him but don't crowd and don't even think about stressing him in any way whatsoever. If I have to stabilize him again because one of you decides to excite his heart and sends him back into shock I will personally run you through my special training program with pleasure. Crystal?"

The voice is gruff and out of place in his soft and warm, if overly bright, surroundings. Before he can place it however other voices pile on top of it drowning out whatever tentative identification he'd been about to make with a rush of the familiar.

"Hey-Todd-how-are-you-feeling?" Pietro.

"It's good to see you in the land of the living." Lance.

"Hi Todd." Freddy.

The relief and happiness in their voices is overwhelming and confusing. What had happened? Why were they here? Where is here? What had happened to make the Brotherhood forget about their petty squabbles and collectively worry about something? What was it that they'd been worrying about? Not him surely.

The voices continue in whispers above his head.

"He _is_ awake right?"

"Give him time. He's not going to bonce back right away."

"Todd? Can you nod if you can hear me?"

Nod? Yeah, he can probably do that. The collective release of breath when he manages it serves again to confuse his meager understanding of the world and what had happened to it. That's enough, he decides. It's well past time he opened his eyes and started getting some answers.

This time the light is mitigated by four shadows leaning over him. He blinks drowsily. "Yo, bros." His throat is dry but words instigate nothing worse than a mild itch and a desire for a glass of water. That's good at least. "Why-" he peers around them and corrects his sentence. "What is this place?"

Pietro disappears for a moment and when he returns there's a cup of water being pressed to his lips. Lance takes the initiative to clue him in while his memories of the last few days trickle back in fits and starts. Most of it makes sense until the last day- yesterday according to Lance. The last hours before he'd gone under are a vivid blur of color and movement with only occasional clear images: Freddy standing in the doorway; Lance laying down a full house against his flush; Pietro and Lance fighting over the top of him for control of the blankets… that's pretty much it actually.  
"-and Freddy ran into X and once they got here they found out that Kurt had to stay home because he was too sick to travel and Wolverine stayed as well to take care of him. Blueboy teleported your ass over here and the rest is history. Wolverine's been down here since you arrived at what, two? this morning, coaxing you back into the land of the living."

Pietro butts in. "Did-you-know-that-frogs-hibernate? Claws says that you should have been dead, cold as you were, but that something in your system was keeping your blood from freezing entirely, like antifreeze."

"X wants to see you when you are feeling recovered enough to see her."

Freddy's last statement is the one that finally holds Todd's full attention long enough for him to blurt out, "Wait. A _girl_ wants to see _me_?"

The boys snicker.

"She says you smell good!"

"I think you may have found your soul mate _Toad_."

"Only-your-screwed-because-she's-Wolverine's-daughter. Literally. Some-freaky-scientists-tried-to clone-_him_-and-ended-up-with-_her_."

Their words wash over him in a soothing buzz. He doubts half of what they're saying is anywhere near the truth. It's a known fact that the Brotherhood loves to extrapolate along the oddest tangents. But he can't doubt the obvious, hit you in the face, concern for his wellbeing they'd been expressing.

He doesn't quite know what to think of that. On one hand he's almost sure it has to be some big hoax, a joke that's going to blow up in his face the moment he thinks he's safe believing it. But people, especially these people, don't put this kind of effort into him period, not to be nice and not to be cruel. He's just not worth the time. So either way, genuine or false, this attention is nice.

On the other hand, hadn't they worked hard to keep him alive all this last week and a half? Making sure he stayed at school. Forcing him to stay on that stupid couch, directly on the best seat in the house, literally, right in front of the tabletop heater? If they just wanted to be cruel why wouldn't they simply let him die? That would be so much easier and then they wouldn't have had to deal with him any more. To top it all off, they'd gone to the X-men. The _X-men_. They'd gone to the X-men to ask for _help_. For _him_. So, since he is a rational being presented with irrefutable evidence, he can only assume the rules of the universe haven't stood on their heads and that that degree of pride swallowing means they actually care about him. Somehow. It's still hard to wrap his brain around.

"Todd? Todd? You still with us?"

"Wha-Yeah?"

A spot of worry wrinkles Lance's brow and then smooths again when he makes direct eye contact again. More evidence. "Just don't want you drifting off before your girlfriend gets here," he smirks lightly.

Todd grins sleepily. " 's much as I don't want t' object t' being given a girlfriend-" Yawn, "- I think _she_ might object and I don't wan' any chick related t' Wolverine mad-" Yawn, "- 't me. Can I go back to sleep now?"

As if on cue – he'd probably been monitoring them – Wolverine appears in the doorway to kick the boys out and check his vitals. Todd closes his eyes for a moment and when they slide open again he's alone. While he'd been under, someone had set up a miniature Christmas tree in the corner and adorned it with paper cut outs of Christmas ornaments and cartoon drawings of the Brotherhood and X-men. At his bedside is a cardboard box with a big red bow on it. He sits up and reaches for it curiously. The microwave dinner inside is still warm and he wolfs it down hungrily as his stomach suddenly remembers he hasn't eaten since breakfast the day before.

Soon after he finishes Lance appears to wheel him up to the rec room. Outside the sun is curving down towards the horizon but there's still enough light out to see that someone had staged a massive snowball fight out on the front lawn. Gathered in rec room are his bros; Lance, Piet and Freddy, and x-geeks; Kurt, Wolverine and the girl X he'd heard about. Not that he'd be caught dead calling the last two x-geeks. Either would probably slice him a new one and he has absolutely zero, zip, zulch desire to abuse their hospitality at the moment. Maybe in a month or two or three. Y'know. When it's actually warm out again.

Kurt pretty much just alternates snoozing and gaming. He plays a mean game of MarioKart but apparently his fever had just broke and Wolverine had only caved to his begging after X had pointed out that he would get more rest if he wasn't 'missing out'. Personally Toad just thinks the grizzler has a soft spot for X.

He certainly does. The first think she'd done when he'd entered the room is walk over to him and glare him in the face before sniffing his hair and informing him that he smelt healthier and he _will_ keep it that way, before walking away again. Weird. Definitely weird. But's he officially fed up to here with Wanda so maybe…

OoO

Without exception, Christmas passes peacefully for all concerned. What had started as a staring match between Pietro and a pile of bills had turned out pretty well, in his own humble opinion. And maybe he'd been doing Wolverine a disservice, comparing him to those slips of paper. If the last week has taught him anything it's that bills are much deadlier, cold-hearted, and intractable than any Wolverine.

**Feedback is, of course, always welcome. In fact I think I have a few pies and a cake in the oven if any reviewers are interested...**

**Regardless, hope you enjoyed!**


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